Quotations
by Wijida
Summary: A/U of 'Endgame'. They don't go home yet...Captain Janeway teaches three Voyager children about ancient earth quotations...*oh, and I /am/ sometimes a J/Cer...so I do not support the suggested pairing...just a note*.


Disclaimer: Paramount owns Voyager, we being mere puppets who type mere fanfiction

Disclaimer: Paramount owns Voyager, we being mere puppets who type mere fanfiction.

Note: The last quote is one from **[Seneca][1] (3 BC - 65 AD) ---**Oh, and think of this as a/u—they're not home yet, but Chakotay and Seven still married ugh—I'm not a fan of that idea..trust me, this took a lot of daring*…

Quotations

By Manda

"There are many old proverbs written by wise men in American history," Kathryn Janeway turned her head and gazed at the gaggle of children who gathered in a circle about her. They were in the familiar, warm atmosphere of her quarters, during what she had so proclaimed to be 'story time', or 'Imagination Class', termed by Neelix. The children were few- Naomi Wildman, Miral Paris…the newly christened 'Ten', or six-year old Christopher Chakotay. She gazed at this particular youth, with-holding a deep sigh. _He could have been mine, had I acted…_ "My father once planned to write a novel, and I remember when he spoke to my mother about it. "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." Winston Churchill was one of his favorite authors..and Daddy always planned to put that into his first book." 

"Did he ever write it?" Naomi spoke up, reaching to fiddle with a fire-red braid which dangled over her right shoulder. Janeway watched her for a moment, and shook her head sadly. 

"No…" She felt a pang of guilt- it had been her own actions which had stopped her father from finishing the anticipated tome- her actions after the tennis match, walking home in the pouring rain and clashing lightning on an Indiana plain. Summer storms…Daddy picking her up and taking her home in the hovercraft. He was upset, and she never blamed him for it.

_"It's the Pythagorean theorem, isn't it, Daddy?"_

__She chuckled at the memory, drawing the attention of the children. "Trouble is part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough. That's what Mommy said when he died…he didn't share his troubles---Cardassians. I remember Cardassians taking up so much of my childhood, and when Daddy died in the accident…Mommy liked to quote Dinah Shore, saying that Daddy never shared his trouble enough, and she never felt that she loved him…" A pause, and her heart constricted as she thought of love for a moment, and glanced at Christopher, who stared upward appreciatively at his 'Aunt Kathryn'. "..enough."

"Captain, are you all right?" Naomi reached upward, a hand resting on the Captains knee. "You don't look well."  
"No, I don't suppose that I do." She didn't feel well, and rose. "All right---ten minutes."

The audience dispersed, and Janeway found herself standing in the middle of an empty room, the final quote fresh in her mind. 

She was sick---nauseous with every moment she spent staring into those deep brown eyes- he looked so much like both of them…his flaxen hair slicked to his scalp in very much the same way which Seven had styled her own. Chakotay and Seven's son….Annika's son…Kathryn could recall the day when Seven gave birth…odd, as she retained enough Borg technology for her nanoprobes to dampen the pain. It had seemed unfair- not only that this woman so close to her gave birth without suffering…but that this woman so close had managed to succeed where she herself had failed. She loved Chakotay, and married Chakotay on board, with Kathryn Janeway performing the ceremony. Ironic—that the former love of the Commander's life would be connecting two lives in which she had played such a vital role. 

"Aunt Kathryn." A solemn voice broke her thoughts, and she looked up as Christopher stopped in the entrance to her living area. "I find it necessary to injest some cow-juice."

"Cow juice." She couldn't hold back a smile…it was imminent. "Christopher, sweetheart…why aren't you in the corridor with the others? I bet Naomi and Miral went to the mess hall…Neelix has cookies, doesn't he?"

"I don't care." The child remained solemn. "Aunt Kathryn?"

"Yes?" She approached the replicator, ordering a glass of cool milk, and handing it to the youth without further thought. He looked troubled, and she suspected she knew what he would ask before he could say it.

"Did your Papa die as soon as my Mama did?"

"Your mama…" Seven had died a year past, one of her implants rupturing on a returning voyage from a nearby colony…trade negotiations…they'd required her to fix a short-range transwarp engine…and she'd only gone at the assurance that Christopher would be under the expert care of Samantha Wildman. Chakotay had been with her…she'd died in his arms, he whispering promises that Christopher would meet his relatives on Earth…that he would be raised knowing only the best about his mother…and that her husband loved her, always. This was conveyed by Chakotay himself…she'd taken him into the ready room, talked with him for days after. Until she knew he was going to make it. He would survive with his son in tow. All the way home.

"Death comes to all. But great achievements raise a monument which shall endure until the sun grows old." She whispered. 

"What?"****

"It's George Fabricius, honey. Your mother read him…when I lent her the book…a long time ago." It seemed longer, still, than a mere three or four years. "Before you were born. The Doctor told her to read to you…I bet she read you the very same thing that your Papa reads to you now."

"Did your papa read to you?"  
"Oh, yes." She smiled. "But your Papa reads you many different stories…he reads you stories from when he was a little boy…ancient legends from his people. His father told him, and he tells you."

"The universe is made of stories, not atoms." Christopher spoke through his milk, smiling softly. "Mama told me that once. It was…a woman wrote it in one of her books."

"That woman was Muriel Rukeyser, honey. A very wise woman." _Very wise, indeed,_ she thought. _I wish I had been as wise as that once… _"Your mama was special, Christopher…and I think that you'll grow up to be everything she'd hoped for."

"And Papa, too?"  
"Yes. Everything your Papa hoped for, too." She wanted terribly to withdraw the subject, moving toward the door and opening it to reveal a giggling pair of girls dancing in the vast corridors. "Girls, come on…I have another story to tell you."

As the group rearranged themselves, Kathryn reached out for Christopher and invited him onto her knee, balancing the young boy with ease. "Now…this is a story about a woman who managed to overcome so many challenges…and the luck she encountered….although she became fond of saying that 'Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.' And she found the opportunities with the hardest work imaginable…getting past her Borg existence."

-Fin-

   [1]: http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes.php3?author=Seneca



End file.
